


santa, baby!

by shariling



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Ass Play, Ben Solo Loves Rey, Christmas Fluff, Competition, Cunnilingus, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Mutual Pining, Rey has issues, Sort Of, ben has a big dog, rey loves christmas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-14
Updated: 2021-02-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:28:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29234565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shariling/pseuds/shariling
Summary: “I don’t hate Christmas, I just don’t love it the way you do.” Lifting his head, he pulls a face, loosening up a tangled ornament of a poodle with pink, curly fluff. Rey snatches it from him possessively, tossing it back to the cart. “No one loves it the way you do, to be fair.”“Now that’s the truth,” says Poe, who Finn invited about half an hour ago to keep him company.“People have bad taste, I don’t know what to say.” Huffing, Rey scrolls through her phone with more intent. “Neither of you are helping me, anyway.”“What’s the problem?” says Poe.“Rey thinks her hot neighbor hates her —”“He does hate me.”“ — When really he’s been flirting with her for the past, oh I don’t know, how long have you lived there?”—Rey gets into a competition with her neighbor, Ben Solo. Trouble is, she's competing for best Christmas decorations on the block, while he's competing to win her heart.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 33
Kudos: 137
Collections: To Find Your Kiss: The Reylo Fanfiction Anthology's Valentine's Day Exchange





	santa, baby!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tmwillson3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tmwillson3/gifts).



  
moodboard by the wonderful [tmwillson3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tmwillson3/pseuds/tmwillson3)!!

“Did you grab the garland?”

“Enough to strangle Santa and all of his Reindeer, Rey.”

“Okay, that was needlessly dark.”

“We’ve been here _three hours_. Dark was passed two hours and thirty minutes ago, now we’re at downright suicidal,” Finn laments, dropping his shoulders over the handle of a very full shopping cart. “If you make me go back for more, add me onto the strangle list.”

“Somebody’s a regular ol’ Scrooge.”

He’s not _completely_ off base with his whining though, so Rey decides not to tease him too much. Who else, after all, would come on a shopping trip the first week of December to stock up on all sorts of wintery delights? The cart is lined with a bottom layer of peppermint bark that Rey basically ran to, padded with two cartons of eggnog and a new board game for game night. The rest of the cart is stocked full of Christmas decorations: lights, ornaments, blow up figures for the front yard, and new stockings with letters printed on the front. 

Of course she got one for Finn, who isn’t going to be over at her house for Christmas, but he deserves his spot on the mantle anyway. He helped put it together after all — after a drunken night in a too empty house, a couple of Youtube videos, and a spur of the moment trip to Home Depot. For manning power tools in between pickleback shots, they did a pretty good job. Thus, his stocking, even if he is a spoilsport.

“I don’t hate Christmas, I just don’t love it the way you do.” Lifting his head, he pulls a face, loosening up a tangled ornament of a poodle with pink, curly fluff. Rey snatches it from him possessively, tossing it back to the cart. “No one loves it the way you do, to be fair.”

“Now that’s the truth,” says Poe, who Finn invited about half an hour ago to keep him company.

“People have bad taste, I don’t know what to say.” Huffing, Rey scrolls through her phone with more intent. “Neither of you are helping me, anyway.”

“What’s the problem?” says Poe.

“Rey thinks her hot neighbor hates her —”

“He _does_ hate me.”

“ — When really he’s been flirting with her for the past, oh I don’t know, how long have you lived there?”

The threat of gossip piques Poe’s interest from where he’d been debating between two separate energy bars, eventually setting them both back on the shelf as his attention is swiftly stolen. Delight curves up the handsome corner of his mouth and Rey can’t help but roll her eyes at the absolute audacity of Finn’s utter betrayal. She is one step away from taking the stocking out of her cart.

“How are we supposed to help with that?” asks Poe. 

“Oh, this’ll be good,” Finn hums in delight, revitalized in their shopping now that they’re poking fun at Rey. The monster. “Go ahead. Tell him the latest issue.”

“We have to get this,” Rey says instead, grabbing powder hot chocolate and tossing it in the cart. “But then we’ll need bigger marshmallows and — stop with the glaring, fine, I’ll tell you.”

Sighing, for perhaps the first moment in the past three hours Rey stops in her tracks, pocketing her phone with a bit of an eyeroll. Apparently the only thing capable of dampening her Christmas spirit is mention of her neighbor across the street, but that kind of tracks. Usually he plans emotional assault throughout the work week and random days plucked from the year, but why not a holiday, why not _this_ holiday. Her hands get thrown frustratedly into her pockets.

“You need context first. I moved in … what, April or June? Almost two years ago.” Finn gives her a nod of agreement. “A week or so after I move in, this guy knocks on my door.”

“She’s leaving out the part where she described him as _roguish_ the first time she told me this.” Finn and Poe share a laugh.

“He is just okay looking, _okay_?” Rey twists her nose. “He is fine looking. Perfectly decent.”

“He looks like if Bigfoot dedicated himself to manscaping and passed the bar exam,” Finn responds, snickering over it with Poe.

“Or just Bigfoot, full stop,” Rey pouts, although it’s lacking a significant amount of mire in it as she shuffles further down the aisle, forcing her two boys to follow her. “Anyway, like I was saying, he knocks on my door. Says ‘hi, I’m Ben Solo.’”

“Sounds nice so far.”

“And then not skipping a beat, he tells me my house — that I just moved into! — is old and outdated.” 

“Oh,” Poe hums consideringly, brows knitted together. “Is that all?”

Finn laughs, and Rey glares at him. “That is not _all_. If that was it, it’d be fine. Would I be upset over that?”

“You totally would.” Finn agrees.

“Silence, peanut gallery. Before I can say anything, he just turns around and walks away.”

“He doesn’t say anything else?”

“Nothing, not one thing. My house offended him too much.” Lost in anxious thinking, Rey just starts tossing random things into her cart, only to be swiftly removed and placed back on the shelf by Finn’s hands once she turns around. Later, she and her credit card will be grateful for this. “The next time I see him, I’m planting pansies in the front yard. They look cute. What does he do?”

“Are you going to tell me?”

“He comes over with his huge dog, and says they’re wilted. Says I should move them to get more light.”

“Wow,” Poe whistles. “Sounds awkward.”

“It was. That summer, he told me my grass was too tall. And that the color I painted my front room was, quote, “alarming.””

“To be fair, it’s a pretty bright shade of yellow,” Finn chimes in. Rey prickles.

“I won’t be shamed by your bad taste. Nothing’s wrong with yellow. The sun is yellow, lemons are yellow. If yellow was a person, they’d be charming and have tons of friends.”

“Nothing is wrong with yellow. The color you chose is one step away from highlighter.”

“Maybe my walls are very important.”

“All walls are important. That doesn’t mean you have to highlight them.”

“Can I hear what he did that’s gotten you so upset this time?” Poe interrupts their bickering, desperate for the drama. 

“The unthinkable.” Rey shudders. “He made me _cookies_.”

The silence is palpable between the three of them for a moment — Rey and her solemn seriousness, Finn and his fighting back a bout of laughter, and Poe steadily sinking into the reality of just the caliber of person he’s dealing with. Suddenly, he looks exhausted, reaching up a hand to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“And that’s … bad?”

“Of course it’s bad! Were you even listening?” Throwing her hands up in the air, Rey groans in annoyance. Her phone gets recollected, her tapping on touch screen buttons woefully unsatisfying to match her mire. “Everything I do, he’s always criticizing me. Obviously, he’s just rubbing my nose in what a good baker he is. I admit, it's a roundabout attack, but do not underestimate his pettiness.”

“Okay, okay,” Poe shakes his head, lifting his hands in surrender. “How’re we supposed to help?”

“I need to know what a better revenge dessert is — pie or brownies.”

Finn and Poe share glances over the cart. Finn is significantly more used to Rey being herself and so just shrugs haplessly, giving a flighty wave of his hand. It’s easier just to go along with her, than try and insist on something logical. It’s a lesson he’s learned many times over.

“Brownies,” Finn hums, and Rey goes back to scrolling recipes on her phone, worriedly biting on her thumb nail as she does. “But only because pie is harder to make. You should go for brownies, they’re more universally liked.”

“But no one has Christmas _brownies_ ,” Poe retorts, and Rey looks up at him. “It’s gotta be pie.”

A second long glance at Finn, and Rey knows they’re thinking the same thing. Rey, regardless of survival skills or the effort she’s put forth in the past few years towards Being An Adult™ , is no cook and certainly no baker. It was always going to be a longshot. She gives a firm but solemn nod in the face of oncoming defeat with her stubborn incapability of stepping down from a challenge, and swears she hears _Taps_ playing in the distant recesses of her mind.

“I can do this. I will do this.” A lady named Georgia has a website to discover, her chubby, Southern cheeks seemingly drawing Rey into a false sense of confidence. She turns the image towards the boys, a firm nod solidifying her choice. “I trust her. Apple pie, here we come.”

—

It is still a marvel at times, to see a fridge full to the brim with foods of all kinds and for Rey to realize, _hey, that’s mine._ Those chicken breasts and that fancy pesto. The impulsive lettuce head she bought, that will likely get thrown away before a single leaf gets eaten. The many, many apples now rolling around loosely in her otherwise unoccupied fruit drawer. 

She is stubborn, but she isn’t foolish. Obviously there will be a practice pie, and the final _fuck you_ pie will be gifted on Christmas Eve, when she’s sorted out all of the kinks in sweet Grandma Georgia’s recipe. 

But pie can wait a little while longer. First things first, they get her front yard set up for the oncoming season. Last year, she’d only been moved in for a few months before Christmas hit. At the time, the realization of owning a house hadn’t hit, and how owning a house meant owning a yard, which meant the real estate for inflatables was only restricted only by the number of outlets she had on the outside of her house.

This year, she’s armed with extension cords and a go-getter attitude, and the only thing stopping her from filling her yard _completely_ up is the very real threat of a heart-stopping power bill next month. But — it’s Christmas. She’s not rich by any means, but she can resort to instant noodles and white bread for a few months on backpay for an honestly abusive use of electricity. Jovially, as Rey directs Poe and Finn to set up the fourth figure ( a Santa that cheerily _ho ho ho!s_ every so often ) she remarks that she wants the astronauts to see her house from the moon.

They kindly do not note that no astronauts are looking back to Earth right now, because they can recognize that this isn’t the point for her. It’s that it’s _her_ house. Rey No One, an orphan at one point, the forgotten member of a rancid society. She has a house, and she’ll dress it up with as many lights as she wants, she’ll have a candy cane forest leading up to her front door, she’ll drape her house in garland until she’s picking it out of her gutter for the next eight months. She imagines birds in springtime, their jazzy nests all decorated with chrome tinsel.

Absolutely delightful. The price she has to pay now and in the future is worth it, for all the future bird husbands bringing home strands of Christmas to their bird wives, and making a bunch of bird babies out of happiness. She thinks Poe and Finn have only tolerated her thus far because while the air is nippy and cold, snow hasn’t fallen just yet. That and the promise of hot chocolate with big, fat marshmallows sits just beyond the threshold of the door, as soon as they have a cinematic moment of turning on all the Christmas lights. Everything resolutely in place, Rey takes one of each of their hands, grinning like a giddy child, before she plugs all the lights in. And —

“Wow,” Poe whistles, leading the charge as they make their way to the sidewalk, to see the entirety of their work of art. It had been hard to focus on at first, the sudden brightness in the early night of December, but it washes over all of them at once. A suspiciously smaller sized house on a block of ritzy, fancy, two story dream homes, decorated each with subtle, glamorous Christmas lights. And then Rey’s home — occupied in the front by no less than eight blow up fixtures, from a reindeer popping out of a present to Buddy the Elf waving cheerily towards the front, illuminated in bright colors of red and green, alternating from each every few seconds.

“This is …” Finn starts, but Rey doesn’t let him finish.

“Amazing!”

And she turns, slinging an arm around either of their necks, and pulling them in for a hug.

It doesn’t miss her, the way that Ben Solo’s house across the street gets flashed in dousing colors, the green and the red each beating off the side of his perfect, beautiful house. 

_Good_ , she thinks.

—

In the following week, Rey spruces up the front lawn on her own, when Finn and Poe are far, far away, and their commentary involving the words _cluttered_ and _hoarder_ cannot hurt her. The candy canes get dolled up with more string lights. The family of metal, skeletal deer get shoved off into a corner of grass where they’ll fit, even if in the shape of an eyesore to the greater public. Rey still thinks it’s fantastic. A big, full lawn, Christmas practically oozing out into the air. Saint Nick, should he exist somewhere out there, would surely be impressed by her commitment to the holiday.

It took a bit of finagling, but she saw to a proud display on her rooftop — a light up sign that happily directs, _SANTA LAND HERE_ in red cursive writing. Stepping back out to the sidewalk in front of her house, she observes her decor, frowning at it being slightly off center, but not finding the will to care all that much about the symmetrical look of her house. Half the block won’t see it, anyway. She lives in the only ranch style home in a three block radius, otherwise dwarfed by the two-story homes that surround her little place. Not that she’s complaining. Not that she _could_ , with a yard as magnificent as this one. 

A bit of snuffling draws her out of her approving hum for her house as a familiar dog leaps up to her. Immediately, her attention is taken by the pup — a very large, very handsome Bernese.

“Spade!” Rey exclaims, and sinks to her knees, welcoming the dog up onto her with his big, fluffy paws on her shoulders. She delights in the way he licks up her cheek, pulling feigned disgust up on her face. Once he settles slightly, she leans off to the side, to observe his owner with more clarity.

Ben Solo always dresses frustratingly handsomely. Or maybe he just makes everything look handsome by close proximity to his very notably attractive body. Or maybe he’s just tall. The light of early morning makes his face illegible in the bask of shadows anyway, although the sun does make a pretty halo illuminate around his head, and Rey thinks about Saturn’s rings, and how they’re just dust and rocks, anyway.

Certainly not heavenly. 

“Hey,” Rey greets him. Ben shuffles in his boots, sending a sidelong glance to her house. He looks uncomfortable. 

“That’s a lot of … stuff,” he says, finally. 

“Yeah. I mean, I didn’t completely wipe Target out, but I came pretty close.” She offers a shrug, standing up. Her hands dust off on her leggings. “So hopefully you weren’t looking for any new Christmas decorations? I might have beat you to it.”

She gives a lazy nod to his house across the street. Very clinically decorated the day after Thanksgiving, which makes Rey believe he paid someone to do it for him. Christmas lights outline the roof, tastefully in the same shade of blue all across the border. Very reminiscent of every other house on the block, embodying the same spirit of a very grown up, minimalistic Christmas. 

Then there is Rey. Her lights bright enough to flash on Ben's house, and outshine the carefully crafted blue.

For the first time, she feels a little embarrassed by her enthusiasm. 

“No,” Ben says at length, watching her yard instead of her. He sniffs, and the tip of his nose looks rosy from the cold. “I wasn’t planning on it.”

“Ah. Well. More for me, I guess.” Somewhat awkwardly, she kicks her foot into the corner of her lawn, only now remembering that she forgot to slip on boots before she headed outside — her reindeer socks have tiny bells that jingle when she rolls her ankle. “Anyway, thank you for the cookies? They were delicious. I will neither confirm nor deny that I ate them all in one sitting.”

“Don’t mention it.” He lifts his free hand to wave in the air. His gloves look cozy, expensive, and they turn more directionally to her house, gesturing. “Is this a fire hazard?”

“Oh. Um.” She really hadn’t thought about it. But she also really doesn’t want her house to go up in flames. “I don’t … think so? Admittedly I don’t know much about it.”

“Might be worth a Google.”

Rey settles a hand on her hip. “I’ll add it to my list. Anything else?”

The terseness of her voice takes him almost physically aback, recoiling as if suddenly realizing his words were not the kindest. His eyes go wide before he ducks his head, pointedly looking down at his shoes — leather boots. They probably make handsome prints in the snow, when he walks.

“Oh. No. Nothing. I’m —” He takes a breath, a little huff to his voice. Spade whines, almost imploring him. “I like the decorations. The — you know. Your Buddy the Elf.”

Rey perks immediately, brightening up in his direction. “Will Ferrell fan, is it?”

“Not really. I just.” Another huff. He seems fond of interrupting himself. “I just like your enthusiasm, I guess.”

“Ah, well. It’s not like anyone on the block is giving me much competition.” She gives a gesture down towards the other houses. “It’s slim pickings out there.”

“You want competition?” He inquires. She swears he looks hopeful.

“Well,” she hums, wobbling her head from either side. “It’d spice things up a bit.”

“I see.” With a cluck of his tongue, he gives a small tug of the leash, Spade perking up from where he’d been debating a piss on Rey’s metal deer. “I’ll be seeing you, Rey.”

He makes a somewhat awkward exit, and Rey can’t help but watch him as he goes, a handsome dog trotting dutifully beside a handsome man, some luxury following in every step they take. She finds herself staring up until she realizes her limbs are steadily numbing from the cold and, coughing once, she breaks herself from the stupor. Eyes the words on her roof with a more discerning eye, before deciding no, the off-centeredness _will_ piss her off, and pulling herself back into her house to go tend the issue.

—

Moving had been an exploration in feelings Rey wasn’t necessarily set on delving into. Her realtor had tried to push her towards bigger, more modern houses with sleek interiors and remodeled kitchens that posed probably no threat at all of gas leaks and fire starters, but the safety of it wasn’t necessarily something Rey was interested in. Mostly, she wanted a place that felt lived in. Quaint. She’d shared a one-bedroom apartment with Finn throughout college, so she knew she didn’t require that much space to exist in — for a while, a twin mattress on the floor with too many blankets all hiding plastic bags of sour gummy worms and hot chips in their folds was all she needed. 

Finn was a good roommate, anyway. He understood the moods Rey had when she couldn’t see anyone, when she’d sit on the floor of the shower and let the burning water remind her of her own existence. He didn’t question her when she ate things with her hands, didn’t make fun when her hair got greasy from a lack of shampooing. Honestly, Rey probably would’ve lived with him forever if she could’ve, but their lives went in different paths, and that was good too. Now well out of college, Rey has a nice enough engineering job to be able to afford a house, so it felt natural that it was what she’d go for.

In her heart, it was the only way to move on from being homeless. She’d had a roof over her head for several years since, but her mind had set the word _home_ in her as a goal, and she couldn’t deny the allure of having a place, her own place, to live in. When she’d seen the small blemish of a house down the block of a rich neighborhood, she knew she’d found it.

It’d been lived in by someone that wasn’t her, that was apparent. The floors squealed as she stepped on them, all the wood nicked with messy signs of life — ticks on the archway between kitchen and dining room, detailing the growth of a child long since aged into adulthood, probably. The lines stopped somewhere around her chest, and Rey imagined herself, tiny and spitfire, stealing beef jerky from the gas station because it kept for a long time, and you could chew a single piece for hours if you were smart about it.

But in this house, she could pretend. Those are her lines on the archway, her mother put them there, cooing sweet words about how big she’s gotten, how she grows more and more everyday. Her realtor wrote this house off as a fumble, pointing out a rug hiding stains on the carpet, or a fresh coat of pale yellow paint in the front room that likely hid water damage, but Rey was already sold. To her, each of these were precious secrets woven into the fabric of this house and she felt protective over it, dead set on not letting them fall unnoticed. The hook holes that held pictures, the different paints caked onto the lightswitch covers.

Okay, so the house is a fixer-upper. No problem for Rey, who’s not sure she’s ever met a challenge she wouldn’t take on. When the house inspection showed up with no black mold, she couldn’t put pen to paper fast enough.

The key in her hands made it real. This house and all its memories belonged to her now, and she’d pay homage to a life she never had by keeping the charm in place. Obviously, some things had to be fixed. Rey liked the rustic charm, but having stained floors wouldn’t do — so she watched a few carpentering videos on Youtube, bought supplies, and set to it herself. She fashioned herself a dining table out of an old pallet and scrap wood she’d found sitting outside the back alley of her old job. She found a dirty sofa at a thrift shop she reupholstered, so the forest green she chose would match the shade of egg yolk yellow she painted her front room. She could probably have afforded _not_ to cut so many corners with herself, but she’s always liked building — the sensation of making something from nothing, from the junk that someone else would throw away. 

And she likes it. Her mismatched decor, the clashing colors. The way everything seems thrown together, loved in. Her leaky faucet that she wrestles with every other week when it gets out of control. The light fixture in her basement she hasn’t _quite_ gotten the nerve to fix, just yet. 

Eventually, though. Her house is full of _eventuallys_.

There had been some jovial dreaming about neighborhood friendliness that had deflated from Rey pretty quickly. When she sanded down the rough edges of her pallet-table in her front yard, the eyes of her neighbors watching hadn’t missed her. Rich families, she imagines the kind of old sixties logic that gets scandalized by a woman living on her own, and somehow that just spurs her on further, making her want to do _more_ things for herself, as if to prove that entire decade wrong. No one bothers to come talk to her though, and she imagines that must be better than anyone being outwardly malicious.

No one except Ben Solo, of course. 

In reality, he hadn’t knocked anywhere. Rey was in her front yard, working on the construction of her bed frame — it’d been uncharacteristically hot for springtime, and Rey considered it a good sign for a building day, although her sweated through tank top disagreed with that sentiment. He approached, staring at her. Almost shocked his feet had dared pull him forward, it seemed.

Honestly, Rey might’ve let him be on another day, but she was desperate for the comradery of neighborhood friends. She smiled at him, with a wave. He seemed to recoil, as if she hurt him.

“I —”

He was suddenly embarrassed. She could tell, because his ears gave him away — pink to the tips, hidden only mostly by the drape of inky black locks. That, and he was looking anywhere but at her, which was. You know.

Extremely cute. She has eyes.

“I’m Ben Solo,” he eventually manages to remember, giving a small gesture to himself, before jutting his thumb past his shoulder, towards the house behind. “That’s my house.”

“Oh!” Wiping her hands off on her shorts, she crosses the distance it takes to get to him, holding her hand out towards him. After a beat, he shook it. A surprisingly gentle hold. “I’m Rey, I’m new here. And wow, your house is gorgeous. Like an IKEA magazine? Though they just usually show the inside of their houses. I guess it looks like the kind of house that would look like IKEA inside. It’s a compliment.”

“Thank you,” he says, presumably not having heard the compliment at all. He drops her hand. “Your house is … you know.”

“Vintage?”

He nods. “Old, yeah.”

“Oof, my pride,” Rey giggles, laying a dramatic hand over her heart, like he shot her. His eyes widen for a second before he shakes his head, apologetically.

“I meant, old-fashioned. Outdated.” He scrunches his nose up. “No, I didn’t mean that either.”

“Look on the brightside, your house will always look more beautiful compared to mine.”

“No — no,” he frowns. “No, just … goodbye.”

And he left. 

It had always stood out to Rey as a particular oddity of an interaction, fumbled and awkward from beginning to end. The memory strikes her again on a particular night when she fusses over her Christmas tree, pulling at and replacing ornaments to her tastes, until a movement from her window draws her attention. The first snow of the season had fallen hard earlier in the day, blanketing lush, green grass in untouched white, several inches deep. It’s through that window that she watches Ben Solo lug out a huge box from his car, staring with rapt attention as he sets up the obvious inflatable in his hands. 

When it’s finished, Rey’s stuck staring out her window in clear wonderment, eyes huge as two moons as she stares at a — twelve? fourteen? — sixteen foot Snoopy, who stares right back at her, massive and gorgeous and big enough to tower over her entire house. Childlike delight brightens up on her expression, gleeful in the way of kids on Christmas morning. Ben turns once Snoopy is all set, glancing at her house with a grin, though some genuine shock pulls at his feature once he sees her in the window, looking back at him.

Rey forgets to be embarrassed about watching him. She just waves her hands wildly, sticking up the biggest and most powerful thumbs up she can manage.

Across the way, Ben fights with the corners of his mouth for a second, before his smile wins the war. He gives her a thumbs up back, and Rey feels that ever familiar burn of a competition beating in her eardrums, but she’s surprised by the fuel running it. Not anger, not proving herself. 

Just the desire to see him smile again.

—

Rey didn’t think she was the kind of person to read the pages long exposé before a recipe that seems to be the trend with food bloggers, but she finds herself swept up in Miss Georgia’s world easily. Really, she’s a surprisingly good author, detailing an heirloom of a recipe passed down from her great grandmother through the generations. She says she won her husband over with it, and there’s an attached image of a cute, old couple posing while holding two green apples. She ends the story by saying _use this recipe with caution, you’ll win over hearts you’d better be prepared to break!_

Rey decidedly unreads it as soon as she finished the sentence. Friends make pies for friends. Mortal enemies make pies for other mortal enemies. Pie is the way of the world, a language anyone can understand.

Her own duality on the concept of Ben doesn’t miss her, and it’s the perfect topic of reflection while she peels apples, letting a Christmas playlist sing a little too loudly from her laptop. She’s charmed by him in an unusual way — he is frequently rude to her, although not expressly mean, and he tends to interact with her in an awkward way, although she can't be sure it’s entirely his fault. Poe once told her she comes on a little strong, although that was months after their first meeting, where she’d pointedly, drunkenly, declared him a difficult man to a bar full of people. She just has a strong presence. People will like it or they won’t, and she’s always been content with her disconnect from others — being unattached is safer anyway, if a little lonely. She never expects anything from anyone, and that’s largely how she remains not disappointed in her day to day. 

With Ben, it’s different. She isn’t used to vying for, much less _needing_ , someone’s attention. 

Hope is a weird, sour taste, flatlining something stale on her tongue. Or maybe that’s the Granny Smiths slices she keeps sneaking into her mouth.

She is not going to pretend Grandma Georgia is her own grandmother, but she can pretend like the sweet old woman is in her kitchen with her, giving needed and kind words of encouragement. _Some people like thick cut apples_ , she says. _The peel doesn’t have to be perfect. If your crust doesn’t turn out okay, just flip it over and scramble it up and make an apple crumble._

“Oh, that’s smart,” she says to no one in particular, or maybe just to the grease stain on the wall behind her oven. The shape vaguely resembles Texas. “You’re a genius.”

 _Never before has there been an apple cutter with such technique._ “Okay, grandma. Laying it on a little thick.” _The way you preheat your oven is truly revolutionary. Also, I love your Christmas sweaters. I love that you have one for every week in December._

“Well, thank you. No one’s ever …” Her expression drops, as if realizing in between talking to herself and the oven beeping for a proper preheat, that despite all the signs of life in her house, there’s still only her, here. Baking a pie by herself, dosed in the holiday spirit as if to make up for years spent neglecting festive cheer. “No one’s ever noticed before.”

People continue not to notice. Regardless of her home, or how desperately she decorates it, she’s still as alone as ever. 

Some smart people put American cheese on their pie slices, and Rey figures then that her tears hitting the crust might be a special little salty something added to the recipe. It’s fine. Or maybe it will go unnoticed, baked into the butter and forgotten, like she never cried in the first place. Either way, a pie is getting made — or the concept of a pie is in motion. Rey holds no grand expectations about what the outcome will be, but she imagines it will at least be edible. 

While the pie is cooking away is when she hears another rattling from outside, much like the night before. Instinctively, Rey is driven to the front window, where she sees Ben and a few other men lifting a huge, presumably heavy, object from the back of someone’s trunk. It’s not until the object in question is set down that Rey realizes what it is — a life size sleigh, sorrowfully bereft of reindeer attachments. Beside the Snoopy, his lawn looked cluttered and delightful, a small place filled with too large decorations, no matching in sight. Ben lets Spade hop up into the driver’s seat of it and before Rey is even aware of what’s happening, she’s shuffling outside, getting snow in her slippers. 

When she crosses the street, it lights up, stopping her dead in her tracks. At the sidewalk, her eyes go dreamy, watching at pale white light flicker in a serene, purposeful way, detailing an effect like the focus of a camera lens right before her eyes. It’s stupid, really. She has the wonderment of a child really witnessing Santa’s great glory before her, and she hardly realizes Ben is approaching her until he clears his throat, almost anxiously staring at her as she watches the twinkling lights. The bright red sleigh. The _Christmasiness_ of it all.

Stupid. Her throat is weirdly dry as she asks, “Can we sit inside it?”

Sharing a few glances between her and the sleigh, Ben barely hesitates a moment before gesturing her in. There’s no door, but she gets the impression that if there was, he’d open it for her, like some kind of old timey gentleman with all his school learned manners in order. Gleefully, Rey takes Spade’s face between her two hands and pulls him in for a kiss, getting a noseful of doggy tongue and laughing at the slime. 

“You must be cold,” Ben says, sliding into the sleigh behind her. He doesn’t sit — he pulls off his jacket and offers it to her wordlessly, a bob in his throat as he swallows. Right. She’d forgotten to put a sweater on and left in her pajamas, because the spirit of Christmas had simply overwhelmed her.

Oddly, she doesn’t feel cold. But she accepts the jacket gratefully, sliding it on her shoulders and sitting back. He joins her, knocking Spade to the floor with a short gesture.

“This is amazing,” Rey says, quiet enough that maybe she’s worried the rest of the neighborhood would hear. She looks forward, catching the empty reins in front of them, giving a small jingle. Bells sing merry tunes, where they’re angled on either side. “You really take competitions seriously.”

“Well … I wanted to win.” Is the cold making him blush? Rey can’t be sure. He grins, like it’s normal for him. “Can I ask you something?”

“Is it, ‘Do you really know every single one of Santa’s Reindeer’? Because the answer is yes. Blitzen and Dancer and Comet and Vixen and …” Trailing off, Rey moves her hands back to the dog, tugging him up until he hops his front legs onto her knees. “The most important reindeer of all, Spade.”

“I don’t think Rudolph rides in the sleigh with Santa.” 

“No, he does. Santa would get too lonely, without him.”

“And that whole bit with the glowing nose?”

“Ah,” Rey lifts her brows, tilting her head to observe Spade’s wet, black nose. She prods at it, features softening as he chases her fingers with a tongue. “Must be switched off. What was your question?”

“You seem to really like Christmas.”

“That was a question?”

“I mean — “ he huffs a little, frowning. Overthinking, probably. He seems the type. “Why?”

She gives a considering hum, heavy only with the weight of her thoughts. Spade gives a gallant leap into the back of the sleigh, where Rey imagines a big sack of presents would be at home if Santa were real, and if tonight were Christmas. He and Ben make a lovely pair. A doggy snoot pushes against a thick shoulder, and Ben dutifully rubs the bottom chin of his companion, eyes staying glued on Rey, as if rapt on her every word. 

She’s not sure anyone’s ever looked at her like that. Interested in what she has to say. Lingering on the cadence of her voice. She feels distinctly vulnerable, in a way she’s surprised she doesn’t hate.

“It might be an unsatisfying answer, but I guess I just … like how people are, during Christmas. Always more generous. Always kinder.”

On the street, it meant the world. Something in the air every December makes people more giving, more open to seeing the people they generally turn their noses up at. Rey was never one to beg for change, but she saw it effect other people — plenty of people worse off than her, relying on charity for meals. It’s a vow she made to herself, that if life could find a way to give her a nudge in a lifting direction, she’d pay karma’s kindness forward. Put back all the good in the world that luck and hard work had given her. 

It isn’t exactly something to tell your neighbor, though. Dropping the reins, Rey sighs, eyes finding their way up to the sky overhead.

“That, and the idea of families spending time together makes me happy. Sharing gifts, feeling all — merry and bright.” Pulling a funny face, she gives a hapless shrug, echoing years of feigned nonchalance at the sight of dads holding their children’s hands as they walked across the street, and wondering why her parents didn’t love her enough. “I know it’s a little lame.”

“It’s not lame. Family is … ” Ben tilts his head pandering for the gold nugget of words he has to sift through the muck to find. “Complicated. But worth it.”

“Complicated?”

“Well, for me. This is going to be my first Christmas celebrating with my parents in a long time. Or anyone, actually.” He looks distinctly uncomfortable. “I haven’t always been the best son. Or nephew.”

“Really?” The surprise in her voice takes him aback, a perk of interest hiding there in the lift of his brows. Rey shrugs. “It’s just, you’re a really good neighbor.”

“I am?”

“Sure.” Rey smiles at him, and manages to keep it only slightly teasing. “You talk to me, for one, which is more than what anyone else on this block does. You made me cookies and decided to compete with me. Sometimes you say weird backhanded things, but I don’t think you ever _try_ to be insulting.”

“It just comes naturally?” He suggests, matching her grin, if slightly tinged with a particular brand of self-deprecation Rey knows as entirely _Ben_.

“Could be.” She hums. “Or maybe I make you nervous.”

Their eyes meet over the sparkle of twinkling lights, and it feels notable in its beauty. Ben looks handsome as ever, his features all flushed pink in the cold nip of winter, hot chocolate eyes molten with an emotion that Rey _does_ know the name of but refuses to say, perhaps for her own sanity. She just looks at him, somehow all knowingly, as if she knows anything at all. 

At length, “You don’t.”

“No?”

He shakes his head. 

“Then what is it about me, I wonder.” In a mockery of thought, which her brain is doing surprisingly little of right now, she wobbles her head. “Maybe I always have food in my teeth, and you’re too polite to say anything. Maybe that’s why you’re always staring.”

“Maybe.” He gives a plainative nod, humoring her. “Maybe you’re just beautiful.”

From her every other interaction with Ben, this seems like hitting beneath the belt. She gapes at him. Her shy next door neighbor who can barely look her in the eye, calling her _beautiful_ like it doesn’t completely knock the breath out of her lungs. It’s a right hook, dislodging something pent up and weird in her chest, a blockage put there from youth. Beautiful. 

“Maybe you should invest in a mirror.”

“ _Maybe,_ ” he says it more firmly, the dull daggers of his gaze piercing her anyway. “You should learn to take a compliment.”

She expects to turn her eyes over at him and see a jovial look of teasing, playful flirting written across his aristocratic features. Instead, it’s this strange look of stubborn sincerity, as if he’d allow for no bartering in the exchange of Rey’s worth. She squints at him. For a moment, she’s taken. Really, it would be the easiest thing in the world, to kiss him now, learn the shape of his mouth and what he tastes like, and maybe let him make a couple of artful stains in this sleigh that they’ll both have to blush at when neighbors come walking by his house. 

Or not blush. Rey’s more the type to point them out and say _you see what he did to me? you see how I want him? how he wanted me too?_

But Ben isn’t leaning in, and as she looks down she sees his hands in tight fists, thumbs tucked away like there’s some real risk of them sticking where they don’t belong, touching her, thumbing all her small parts and eclipsing her under the pads of his huge, thick thumbs. Then again, maybe he’s just cold. Maybe he wouldn’t kiss her at all.

A laugh falls out of her mouth and Ben perks. Eyes opening up, a worried look matches knitted brows to a downturned lip, and Rey can’t help but smile at the seriousness of him, lifting a hand to cover her mouth.

That soothes him somewhat. His brows still pinch, confused. 

“Something’s funny?”

“It’s just.” She smiles, head tilting away, while she wrangles her thoughts around if Finn’s ever looked at her like this before. Like there’s no exceptions to the statement of how lovely Rey is. Ben strikes her as someone used to getting his way. “You look so serious.”

“I am serious.”

“You’re not _that_ serious. You bought a twenty foot Snoopy.”

“Sixteen. And I am serious, when it comes to you.” A vague wave up. “Hence, Snoopy.”

“You bought Snoopy because you think I’m beautiful?”

His mouth scrunches to one side in thought. After a second, he nods. “I guess I did.”

This man. Honestly. 

She can’t be sure what her expression reads — either rapture from the thought of someone, anyone at all, wanting her for any reason, or the burble of laughter she has to fight down so she doesn’t end up crying everywhere, but regardless, Ben’s face softens. He smiles, and it’s this secretive thing like he can read through her with a gaze and enjoy the words on her pages. Like there’s more things beautiful about her than just how she looks. Like he wants to discover them, like he’d know where to look inside her in order to avoid all the barbed wire defenses that’ve been forcefully installed in her.

Smiling, she leans over, pressing a hand overtop his, somewhat surprised to find he’s not actually cold at all. She swears she hears him gasp, but he doesn’t move an inch. “Ask me what’s in my oven.”

“What’s in your oven?

Rey laughs at the immediacy of his response to her odd request. Ridiculous. “Revenge.”

“Huh.” His gaze lifts up from her hand. “Like a corpse?”

“Similar, but not quite. Keep thinking though, you’ll get there.” Squeezing his hand, Rey slides out of her side, offering Spade a quick pat in goodbye as he immediately takes up her place. “Revenge will be doled out on Christmas Eve. I’ll drop it off then, okay?”

She doesn’t wait to see any overthinking crest on his face — she just rounds the sleigh, making three steps towards her house before turning back around and shimmying out of his coat, tossing it back towards him.

“Christmas Eve. Don’t forget.”

He dazzles her, with a charming smile.

“I won’t.”

—

In all technicality, it's Christmas _Eve_ Eve when Rey sees Ben next. The plumage of black smoke stains on the ceiling above her stove details the failure of her first pie, and the not dead ghost of her not grandma Georgia helpfully reminded her that _some people like the crispy bits, dearie_. Blackened pie is probably nothing, though Rey still thinks there’s the potential to find that name written in a dessert menu of a high end restaurant downtown. 

It can only get better from there, she reassures grandma. And she respectfully puts all her eggs in the next basket of pie, currently baking in her oven when a sudden knocking comes at her door. 

“Do you think Santa came a little early?” She asks Beebee — Finn and Poe’s cat that needed a place to stay while his dads went on a vacation for Christmas. He’s already opened his gift, anyway. The catnip drive for kitten claws made quick work of Rey’s abhorrently wrapped cat toys. 

She would pick him up to keep him from running out, but honestly, the cat is nineteen pounds and hasn’t done much running in the last ten years. If he made a break for the door, Rey would text Finn and Poe in delight before running after him.

Anyway, there’s a very high cat drooling on her floor, and a very flustered Ben staring at her. Briefly looking down, a different Christmas sweater on her chest, before looking back up. 

“Ben?”

“Hey,” worriedly, he wipes a hand over his mouth. “Can I come in?”

Rey’s first thought is not towards the poor man sitting out in the cold, his fine, leather boots dusted in the snow Rey hadn’t managed to shovel out her walkway this morning. Instead, she’s thinking about the skinned remains of apples on her kitchen counter, and the few little desperate strings she’s clinging onto to make her revenge a continued surprise. 

She sucks on her cheek before opening her door up wider. Welcoming him in, with a caveat. 

“Can you close your eyes? I’ll guide you.”

He takes to her odds ends and requests like he’s already used to what a silly person she can be, and does so without question. An obedient boy, she thinks, like a well trained dog. Holding his wrist, she pulls him in, the door kicked closed behind him as she guides him into her front room, pushing him to take a seat on the sofa. It faces away from the kitchen, and therefore all pie warfare is spared from his gaze.

Instead, he gets a view of her front room. Highlighter yellow walls and a too big Christmas tree for the space, decorated in unmatching ornaments. Stockings on the mantle for people who won’t be here. A fire in the fireplace, touching his face in warm hues as he opens his eyes, taking it all in. 

“Wow,” he hums. “It really is very yellow.”

“You say that now. You’re really not going to like my bedroom.” Well, she didn’t mean for it to sound like she was _implying_ anything, but it sounds like it anyway. Clearing her throat, she changes the subject. “Was something wrong? You look upset.”

“Oh, yes. Right.” Anxiously, he wipes a hand over his face, angling his head down, before gesturing somewhat lazily at her socks. They have little snowmen on them. “I like your socks.”

“You’re buttering me up for something.” Suspiciously, she narrows her eyes. “I’m onto you.”

“No, I really do like them.”

“Thank you, but not the point.”

“Right,” he groans. “Anyway, I’m not going to be here for Christmas Eve. I tried to get my parents to switch having Christmas dinner over here instead, but it was last minute, and they’re…”

“Vintage?” Rey supplies, with a lift of her brow.

“Old. Old-fashioned. I mean that this time.” He frowns. Guilty eyes look up at her, huge and pleading. “I’m sorry.”

“What’re you sorry for? I shouldn’t have assumed.” She hopes she keeps the disappointment out of her mouth — this is what she’s used to, in any case. She’s always been alone on Christmas, why _now_ would be any different, she has no idea. The corner of her mouth lifts up in a short smile. “You really tried to change dinner?”

“Of course.”

“Why?”

“You looked happy about it. Excited.” A hand lifts up and rubs the back of his head. “And I wanted to know what revenge was.”

“It’s once again in the oven.” She nods her head over his shoulder. “Smell it?”

The vague echoes of cinnamon and mulled spices sit in the air. Ben looks up, inquisitively. “It doesn’t smell like a dead body.”

“Thank you. You sound a little disappointed, though.”

“Not at all. If I’m disappointed by anything, I’m disappointed I won’t see you tomorrow.” he says it softly, pink pulling up on his mole trodden skin. 

“Oh. Well.” Is it hot in here? She’s getting pink too, she can feel it. “If you give me, I think, an hour, we can enjoy revenge then. Provided I didn’t mess anything up, and that it won’t confuse you to pretend like it’s Christmas Eve right now.”

“Actually,” Ben swallows dryly, standing up from his seat to tower over her. Rey used to be easily intimidated by height, seeing his hulking form and understanding all the obvious ways he could use his size, his weight, to his advantage. Maybe she’d still be nervous about it if he didn’t look surpassingly awkward in his own skin, like a pine tree that sprouted too quickly from the ground before it learned how to be tall. He palms his hand inside his coat jacket, a hidden pocket at the breast. “I was hoping you’d say that. I bought you a present.”

“A — for _me_?”

She gapes at him, a small and thin box collected from his pocket. His movements are riddled with seeming inexperience as he thrusts it forward and to her wide eyed wonder. Hesitantly, her hands move to wrap around it, their fingers brushing over the bow of a red ribbon. Rey pretends not to gasp and Ben pretends not to notice, offering a shy smile. “I hope you like it.”

Rey can be savage with offerings. A gifted sandwich can be eaten in record time, and Finn has been known to describe her as feral like a dog should someone buy french fries or, so help them, a batch of guacamole for the table. Patience has never been a friend to her, so she even takes herself aback with how delicately she handles this tied ribbon, this finely finished box, velvety smooth cardboard sliding under her fingers as she lifts the lid. 

A chain drapes over her fingers, box tucked into her free hand as she pulls the necklace out entirely. A small, shiny Santa Claus charm sits in the middle of her palm.

“I would’ve gotten something different,” Ben explains, flustered. “But you just love Christmas so much.”

“No,” Rey almost whispers, softly closing her hand around the little Santa and turning her eyes up to Ben instead, smiling at him. She hopes the smile says everything she doesn’t know how to voice, words like _I thought you hated me but really, you love me, don’t you, Ben?_ “It’s perfect, Ben. Really.”

“Can I put it on you?”

“Yeah. Please.”

Turning, she hands off the necklace with an air of delicacy, which Ben responds to in kind, his giant fingers dwarfing over the slim chain, making it seem even smaller. Rey’s hair is up in her usual three buns, but he sweeps invisible hairs off the back of her neck away, hot fingers gliding against the notch of her first vertebrae, making a shiver send down the road of her spine. She takes a soft breath as Ben pulls the necklace around her, finessing the latch at the back until the charm rests weightlessly on her chest.

She spins back around, fingers toying with the chain. Grinning at Ben, he manages another one of his silent, sweet smiles, and Rey really needs to check her calendar and make sure Christmas didn’t come just a little bit early, this year. 

“Do you think this is the closest Santa’s been to a boob that wasn’t on Mrs. Claus?” she asks. Ben snorts.

“Lucky Santa.”

“Luckier people exist.”

“Really?” Ben laughs. “I don’t believe you.”

“Well, you should. Because —” Stepping away from him, Rey moves to her Christmas tree, fishing out a package underneath that appears to have been wrapped by a toddler. On the wrapping paper, in between the plaid pattern, is the name _Ben_ , written in Sharpie. “I got you something too!”

Surprise registers on his face in a few moments of tense confusion, as if he anticipates being the butt end of a poorly timed joke. Resilient, Rey holds the present out until he takes it, fingers crunching around the noisy paper. 

“You didn’t have to.”

“Neither did you. Now, open it.”

He’s delicate the way Rey was, fingering the packaging tape at the haphazard seams where Rey’s managed to tuck excess paper she folded over instead of cutting off. She’s about to tear into the thing herself from the stress of anticipation, before he finally gets to the treasure inside, palming out knitted cloth from its paper prison. He unfolds it, the paper respectfully tossed to the couch while he observes the dark green sweater in his hands — a repeat pattern of Santas, presents, candy canes, snowmen. 

An ugly Christmas sweater. Rey jazzes out her hands in a _ta-dah_ kind of way.

“I had to guess on the size, so hopefully it’s not too small. But if it is … “

She trails off, watching as Ben unbuttons his jacket and lifts the sweater off his arms, distinctly thinking that maybe she should’ve bought a size smaller on purpose. Or better yet, she should’ve just wrapped absolutely nothing and told him _this is what I want you in_ and _your Christmas present is I’m letting you sit your bare ass down on my newly upholstered couch._ Obviously, not the case. He still has his undershirt on, and starts pulling the sweater up his arms when he arches a brow at her. Clearly she wasn’t as subtle with her staring as she’d like to be, but that small hit of belly she saw when he lifted his sweater would’ve made anyone weak in the knees.

“If it is?” he implores, pulling the sweater on the rest of the way.

“Then you must’ve yoked up from the last time I saw you. I guess.”

“Uh huh.” 

The hem gets tugged down the waist of his Levis, and Rey can’t pretend like a man in Christmas uniform doesn’t do something for her. Ben holds his arms out a little haplessly. 

“How’s it look?”

“Amazing. You should wear things other than black, you look great in color.”

“I feel like you’re biased.”

“Because I love Christmas, or because I like you?”

“Oh.” He blushes. “Both?”

Ultimately, Rey decides pink is a good color on him as well. Next year’s Christmas sweater will have to take advantage of how good he looks blushing. This year’s Rey might have to take advantage of it, too. Her head tilts to one side as she observes the thickness of his chest, Ben not encouraging, but not running away from her gaze, either. 

“Thank you for the sweater.” He clears his throat. “I like it.”

“I do too,” Rey agrees, darting a hand out to touch his side. Ben shudders. “But you know what I think? I think it might look even better, uh.” _On my bedroom floor_? The cliche of it makes her cringe. “Off. Gone. You know?” 

The look she receives for all of her seducing effort is one of smug understanding. When you’ve been caught in the act of misplaced subtlety and earned the opposite effect — he looks at her and sees through her again, like walls between them don’t exist, like the first time he talked to her he hadn’t run away when he called her house ugly. 

“Is that so?” 

His hands slide, huge but careful, up her biceps. Cupping her like she’s something precious to the hands holding her. Ben’s eyes are liquid with determination, crashing like waves between each of her own. There’s a request there, an archaeologist surveying her ruins and looking for an answer to a question nobody asked before. 

_What do you want, Rey?_

He could read fossils in her like ancient thoughts she’s had since she was a child, long since burned into the recesses of her walls, the old caves and buried wonders of her mind. Thoughts like — _i want to see people walk towards me, not away. I want the world to respect me. I want someone to describe their love for me as passionate. I want to find someone willing to fight for me. I want to be worthy._

But she doesn’t say the words, because he didn’t ask the question, and honestly she’s not sure if she’d say them anyway. She’s bold in her mind’s eye, but she also needed an excuse to make a kind boy a pie as sweet as him, which doesn’t bode well as far as taking the initiative goes. She does still regard him with an openly curious look, hazel eyes telling as she stares up at him, sliding her hand up to cup his cheek.

“Well,” she hums, offering a half smile — half playful, half shy. “It _is_ Christmas. Play Santa a little while longer, and give me what I want.”

He steps forward and into her, their chests knocking together, rattling some emotion loose and sending it freefalling into the bottomless pit of Rey’s stomach. “What do you want, Rey?”

Ah. He asked. Every answer she had prepared dies swiftly on her tongue, leaving her instead with wide eyes and the world at her fingertips, the question like a promise at his lips, her genie of a man set to give her anything she can put her mouth on, her words to. A new car would be nice, her mind unhelpfully decides, when she stutters to say the only word she can think of. 

Well, fuck it.

“You.”

Companionship is the only thing that’s ever mattered to her, really. Christmas is only notable on her radar as a day constructed to make memories, to acknowledge and love people in your life who you care for more than anyone else. She wants Ben because her own resistance to needing someone dwarfs in comparison to her desire not to be lonely. Because if all it takes is a word, _you_ , to get his mouth on hers, she’ll say it a hundred times over. 

His hands snake their way to the backs of her shoulders, Rey’s arms moving to wrap around his neck. He doesn’t make her wait, pausing only for a brief moment before pressing his mouth to hers, knocking the breath from her lungs as he does it. It’s a kind kiss, all things considered. Slow and sweet, the way first kisses should be. Ben tastes distinctly sweet, and Rey is delighted to find his mouth feels just as plush as it looks, soft as the hair she finds gliding through her fingers.

But it’s not enough. Ben pulls back just enough to rest his forehead against hers, breath hot on her mouth. His eyes are screwed shut and Rey watches the wrinkle between his brows with some intensity, wanting to drag her teeth on the skin and taste his salt. 

“The first time I saw you, I thought I’d die if I never got to kiss you,” he admits, and it’s rushed out and a little embarrassed, making a sly smile curve up the corner of his mouth. “Turns out, I’d die if I ever did. I must be in heaven.”

“I sure hope not,” Rey says, surprisingly breathlessly. Her hands move to his jaw to angling him down, up on her tiptoes to brush her mouth against his. “I have a lot of plans. I mean, Christmas wishes and the like. You have to be alive for them.”

“Can I hear a sampling?”

“Hm…” Her head wobbles in thought. “More kissing?”

“I can do that.”

“Say it with a Santa voice.”

“Ho ho ho,” he says, dryly.

“And —” He circles the tip of his nose around hers, just before Rey leans to one side, squinting her eyes at the timer above the stove, glowing turn of the century green. “We have thirty minutes. We can think up something to do for that long, can’t we?”

“I have some ideas,” he says.

“Tell me?”

“I’d rather hear what you’re thinking.”

“I’m thinking,” hummed out, she leans in, stealing a peck. “It might be nice to know what you’d feel like inside of me.”

Something about him is inherently soldier-esque — full lips get licked as he gives a stern nod, a cadet responding to a superior officer’s instructions. Her wish, his command. It’s affectionately committed, and Rey finds herself warm to his degree of intensity, as dead set on her desires as he would be to the enemy behind trenches. But she isn’t the enemy, and neither is her highly sporadic sex drive, so she kisses him again to reassure him that it isn’t just fake Christmas for _her_. She’ll play Santa too. 

Grunting against her mouth, Ben’s hands find the hidden curves of her waist and grip her, settling into something harder as he presses himself more firmly against her. At the beckon of his tongue, her lips part, welcoming him in like she had into her humble abode — eyes closed, yellow paint on the walls. The memory of other people having been here, carved into her flesh like little notches of disappointing encounters, but it’s never been like _this_ before. His mouth. Expert and warm, as demanding as he is sensitive, following the eager leaning she has to greet more of him, his body. Like he cares about her arousal, her choosey pleasure. Like every move he makes is with the underlying thought of making something better for her.

She’s getting a mighty ache in her feet from arching up to meet him, and right on time he feels her waver, bending down to scoop her effortlessly into his arms, legs around his waist. Not expecting it, Rey yelps against him, gripping on tight to his shoulders as if worried her weight will upset his balance. 

He doesn’t so much as flinch. She looks behind herself, as if to make sure a tow truck hadn’t just snuck into her living room to raise her up towards her too low ceilings, but. It ends up just being these valliant biceps under her hands, the grip he has just under her ass supporting her. She looks back at him, bewildered.

“You’re strong.”

It slips out of her mouth, unwarranted, somewhat dumbly. Ben looks exceptionally smug, _too smug_ , and smiles at her, giving her a small bounce in his arms for emphasis. 

“You don’t weigh anything.”

“Just don’t throw out your back.”

“Hm.”

It’s a mock hum, like he’s pretending to take her words seriously without acknowledging them for more than a second. Rey pouts at him, her vantage ground given with the leverage of his hands, and he laughs a little breathlessly, leaning in to kiss her chin.

“I deadlift more than you. Promise.” His eyes twinkle darkly as he moves, turning them around. “Besides, you should be more worried about your back.”

“That sounds threatening.”

“Isn’t that what kids say? ‘Blow your back out’?”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Rey laughs, one hand falling out of his silky hair to slap against her forehead. Her back meets the living room wall as he pins her in place. “You ridiculous, oversized man.”

“I can’t say I’ve ever been accused of being ridiculous before.”

“No? I can see right through you.” It comes out softer, Ben’s eyes perking up from where he’d been locked in a staring match with the reindeer on her Christmas sweater. His hand, huge and hot, palming lazily up her sides, pushing her sweater up until it drapes around his wrists, and he can map out her waist. Rey juts out her chin, in defiance of her red cheeks. “You’re just a big marshmallow.”

His hands stay steady, reassuring on her waist. Rey is someone who shies away from comfort when it’s gifted to her, often finding the threat of it being conditional enough to spoil whatever bounty there is in its goodness. But this — it’s nice. Maybe because she can categorize it in column A, _foreplay_ , and not have to think about it as anything other than a movement with a goal in mind. He’ll slide his hands up soon, pinch too roughly at her nipples and she’ll pretend to like it. 

Even as she thinks it, it feels empty and cold. Ben isn’t cruel. If she squints it almost looks like he cares for her, watching her reactions and stopping after every kiss to check her progress — so she shuts her eyes instead and rocks into his palms, head thumping back on the wall. Ben doesn’t miss a beat, claiming his mouth at the exposed length of her neck, sucking the sensitive skin there with a scrape of his teeth.

“ _Mm_. Never been called a marshmallow, either.”

“That’s a shame. It’s the perfect word for you.” Shivering at the hot length of his tongue, Rey pushes her chest out towards him. Maybe she wouldn’t mind rough pinches, if it meant he was touching her. “Sugary sweet, fluffy, _soft_ …”

Ben snorts abruptly. “I’m positive you’re the only one who would describe me in such a way.”

“It’s because I’m immune to that impenetrable scowl of yours. And —” A gasp leaves her, as Ben quickly drops himself down to his knees. “What’re you doing?”

“I want to taste you,” he says it like it’s simple, like it’s nothing. Like anyone’s ever done that before, ever _wanted_ to. He bats too heavy eyelashes up at her, nose prodding her belly. “Can I?”

“You — you don’t have to.”

“But,” he murmurs it, the coy motherfucker. A pout far too innocent to be even remotely pure lines his soft mouth, just as his hands cup her hips, fingers toying idly with the band of her leggings. “It’s Christmas. Please?”

Maybe if he didn’t look like it was nothing more than absolute charity for her to offer her cunt to his lips, she’d be able to resist. As it is, he looks starving, nuzzling into her stomach and ready to drop further down with her consent on her lips. 

“You could just fuck me,” she offers, attempting some level of bravery, though it hides the extent of her own cowardice — she’s never liked attention on her, not like this. It’s awkward. 

“Don’t want to.”

“Oh.” She frowns. “You don’t?”

“Not until I make you come once. Maybe twice. Like I said, it’s Christmas.”

“Ah, well. That’s the thing, isn’t it.” His fingers tug down on her leggings, getting enough of a grip to unveil a hipbone, the beginnings of a frilly pair of underwear. Ben doesn’t hesitate to lay his huge mouth on her skin, warm kisses on the jutting bone. She gasps, electric. “It. Takes nothing less than a small act of god to get me off. Not worth the effort, usually.”

He must not hear her, attentive as he is sliding his mouth over, tongue falling in the dip of her navel. She shudders, wobbling on her feet from side to side, hoping Ben won’t find her lack of orgasm too disappointing. Maybe she’ll just fake it, but — something tells her he’d know, and wouldn’t appreciate the lie. 

“Is it easier by yourself?” he mumbles it against the front of her underwear, effectively punching the breath from her chest. Hands dart up to his black hair quickly, equal parts pulling him in and pushing him away, so she just ends up holding him, as kindly as she can. 

“Huh?”

“Getting off. How do you do it when you’re alone?”

“Oh … just —” A gentle gesture backwards, down her hallway, into her bedroom, under a pillow she made from an old t-shirt. “My vibrator. Did you … do you want me to get it?”

A small grunt falls from the back of his throat, and Ben dutifully shakes his head _no_ , as if affronted by the thought that anything other than him could touch her, right now. It’s surprisingly intoxicating, the apparent level of power she has over him. As delicate as pulling back the premature petals of an under bloomed rose, Ben pulls her leggings down to her mid thigh, leaving them there as his hands surge up to palm the curve of her ass. 

He smiles at her choice of underwear, nosing into an all too innocent bow at the front.

“These are cute.”

It’s a repeated pattern of Santa Claus emojis, with the text _Unwrap Me?_ in blocky letters right on top of her crotch. She hadn’t any illusions of anyone seeing them when she’d bought the joking pair, figuring at _most_ she might be able to traumatize Finn if she left them hanging out haphazardly around the house. 

“Thank you,” she mumbles. “All my sexy lingerie is in the wash, unfortunately. I also really didn’t plan on getting laid, today. Tomorrow, maybe.”

“Oh?” An artful brow arches on his forehead, surprised but interested. 

“I may have dreamt up some porno scene, while thinking of revenge. You in a Santa hat, your parents downstairs.” Rey stutters out a laugh as his breath hits hotly on her cunt. “Telling me I’m on your Nice List.”

“Fuck.”

It’s more of a grunt as it leaves him, Ben nuzzling like a dog between her legs, poking and prodding her where a snout decidedly _doesn’t_ belong, but always ends up near. She can’t help her shiver in response to his voice more than anything, the gruffness of it making the hair on her arms lift up in attention. His mouth opens against the cotton of her underwear, and if he’d just stick his tongue out — 

“Rey.” He peels back, fingers plucking at her goofy underwear at the hip. “If you want to be on the Nice List, you should let me go down on you. It’s what a good Christian would do.”

She groans, and tries to make it from charmed annoyance instead of the rush of wet current coating her underwear. Looking down, she taps her thumb against the hollow of his cheek, pushing rambunctious locks behind his too huge ear. Maybe it’s fine. Maybe he’ll enjoy it. 

“Okay, okay,” she agrees, and Ben immediately hops into action, pushing her legging the rest of the way down and off her ankles, handling her precious Christmas underwear with a bit more care. “Just — don’t roleplay Santa, or my necklace is going to feel very blasphemous.”

“Why’s that?”

“Well. Christianity aside, Santa would never cheat on Mrs. Claus.”

“Then —“ She feels her underwear anxiously clinging onto her cunt with the extent of her excitement, but she can’t look at Ben, at the dawning euphoria cresting on his moon swept face. “Be my Mrs. Claus.”

There’s something very interesting happening on her ceiling. There must be, because there’s a handsome, godsend of a man kneeling between her legs, staring at her cunt like it hung the stars in space, while Rey occupies herself looking at stains above her. The mismatched whites, the pesky corner behind her tree where the yellow paint didn’t fully stick. It isn’t half as captivating as the man, huge and held in a too tight sweater that Rey bought him, that Rey imagined a hundred times in a hundred different moments pulling on him, but never once taking it off.

Well, okay. Maybe _once_. Maybe more than once. But that’s between her and her vibrator, who already knows not to judge her weird masturbatory habits. 

“Okay,” Rey whispers, taking a breath before resolutely looking down at him, as if insisting she isn’t intimidated by his outward adoration of her. His eyes, heavy with implication, sweep from the peek of her pink pussy, up to her eyes where she feels herself melt, a popsicle in the hot summer sun, amounting to the drip of arousal between her thighs. 

He’ll discover her soon, but for now — she, and her flustered cheeks and wide eyes, are the very epitome of nonchalance. 

“Three hundred and sixty four days of the year you’re off work, and yet you can’t seem to do a single dish.”

A grin tugs up on his mouth and Rey reminds herself that flashing teeth is a threat in another animal’s language. Not his, though. The honeyed curl to his voice lilts up in a laugh, the heat of it brushing on her bare cunt, and Rey thinks she might just grind her vagina directly on his nose, if he doesn’t get to it.

“Let me make it up to you.”

She is not kept waiting, Ben leaning in that small inch and pressing a kiss on the part between her lips, right above her clit. Gasping, Rey instinctively balks away from him, except there’s nowhere to go while she’s pressed up against the wall. She just jumps, bringing one of her hands up to press a knuckle to her mouth, biting back a moan as his tongue darts out to lick her folds. 

“Don’t —” With a shudder, Rey spreads her legs, not having to wait a moment before Ben picks up her leg, draping her knee over his shoulder. Opening her up to his gaze. “Don’t even get me started on the reindeer poop. Our unshoveled pavement.”

“I haven’t been taking care of you,” Ben supplies, fingers sliding between Rey’s legs to stroke her soaked cunt. Oddly, Ben is the one who gasps. “Have I?”

On some plane of existence, Rey meets his question with an equally charming, witty response. On this plane, however, Ben presses his mouth into her dripping folds and all logical thought floats far and further away. His tongue is slick as it glides too easily against her, a delicate flick meeting her burning clit in a way that has her toes curling behind his head, and Rey realizes with a start — she might actually come. Not immediately and not without effort, but the potential is there, hidden away in the point of his talented tongue. One taste, and anything feels possible. 

Despite that, he doesn’t seem to be going at it with any kind of finesse — lapping at her like a lollipop dribbling cherry syrup down his chin, Ben seemingly content enough just to taste her. Maybe that’s why it’s so good. He isn’t rushing her. She gets the impression she could keep him there on his knees for hours on end, and he’d be happy enough to press wanton, thirsty noises right there into her cunt. Promises each, for future pleasures, paying forward every moan he intends to get back from her. 

“ _Ben_ —”

She used to have the belief that she was quiet during sex, that everyone only ever moaned to make their partner happy, to some degree. Even touching herself was a quiet, nonplussed affair. Her vibrator doesn’t really feel like Ben, though, his tongue curiously lapping at her sensitive skin now that the initial taste is out of the way, mapping her body for the best sensations. She feels like a livewire beneath his ministrations, spat on and touched, electricity vibrant in her veins. 

Grunting, Ben follows her body’s instructions, before focusing his tongue’s energy on her clit, plush lips encircling and suckling on the rosy bud. Rey nearly screams as he does, fingers in his hair tightening so she can messily grind against his face. He lets out a louder groan, blindly palming up her other thigh before lifting that one as well, tucking it over his shoulder.

Rey yelps, thinking she’s about to fall to the ground, but — instead, she finds that he holds her weight with little effort, relying on his muscles, and her own shoulders digging into the wall behind her. She moans, her brain short circuiting. 

“You — _fuck_. You really are strong.”

She could bet money that the teeth she just felt against her cunt were a smirk disguised by her folds, but she doesn’t have much time to reflect on Ben’s clear cockiness. He sweeps his hand under her ass, sliding a finger effortlessly inside of her, and she has to throw back her head and moan again, back arching off the wall.

Ben pulls off her for air, turning his mouth to press sloppy kisses against her inner thigh. “Jesus, Rey. You’re so _warm_.”

There’s a whole mess of slick just waiting to be discovered by his seeking finger — she can feel her body let it go, soaking his hand down to the palm. Rey shivers, embarrassedly. The extent of her arousal being put that blatantly on display is more than a little nerve wracking, but as long as Ben doesn’t seem disgusted with her, she’ll choose to believe it’s fine. 

And really. If anything, his expression is surprised. Enamored, brought to the revelation that he is capable of working wonders on her, unable to deny it when her wet is soaking him to the bone. 

“You taste so good,” he hums, complimenting it with a kittenish lick across her clit. 

“B-Ben, _please._ ”

“Is it like this, when you touch yourself?” He accents the question with a second finger pushing inside her. She’s wet enough, loose enough, that it goes with no issue except for a louder moan ripped from her chest. “Rey, _Rey_. Do you feel it?”

A hand tightens in his hair, pulling at the root. Ben groans, and Rey has to look down at him, moving her free hand over to swipe her thumb against his wet mouth. He chases after it to kiss the pad of her thumb. “Fuck. I feel …” 

“Tell me.”

“ _Intense._ ” She shakes her head, not impressed by her own words. “Different. No one’s ever — I mean, I haven’t. Felt this before.”

As much as he can, his head cocks. Curious. “Felt what?”

“Um.” Rey gives a vague gesture between them. “Someones … tongue in my … hello?”

“Your _hello_ ,” Ben repeats, unamused. There’s a tilt to his voice, oddly irritated. His fingers give a suddenly thrust _in_ , rougher than before, as if making a point. Rey gasps. “This is your cunt, Rey. It deserves to be eaten anytime you want. People should be _begging_ you for a taste.”

The dirtiness of the sentiment takes Rey’s breath away, but Ben gets lost in his thoughts again, eyes stormy.

More pointedly, “No, not people. Me. Anytime you want. Just let me —”

He dives back in without another word, using his mouth in a symphonic rhythm with his fingers as if to say _this is all I am, everything I’m offering, please take it, please._ What the hell. Rey doesn’t know what else to do but moan louder to the peaking crescendo, her body unused to be being played so well by someone other than her — and frankly, even her masturbatory sessions don’t feel this good. She has half a mind to be angry at her body, for hiding all these apparent pleasures inside her, until Ben sought to unbury them. 

Gripping his hair with both hands, Rey forces herself back into a grind on his face, which Ben doesn’t fight off this time. Letting her take her pleasure, knowing inherently that she needs some sort of control over herself to feel comfortable. 

“Ben, your _mouth_ ,” she purrs it, breathless in between the moans he tears from her lungs. “Please, _please_ don’t stop. Keep — keep going. I’m —”

 _Close_ , painfully so. The sensation is more strange than she’s willing to admit, her body giving way and willingly accepting every talented stroke of Ben against her. Her body clenches tightly around his fingers, and he somehow knows exactly what she needs, too lovingly dragging his teeth over her clit to spark off the tinder of her orgasm. Like a string in her belly suddenly pulled taunt, an orgasm echoes through her body, thighs quaking on either side of his head as Rey releases a cry of ecstasy. In the back of her mind, she can feel the very telling wet sounds of Ben’s fingers inside her, elongating her sudden and unexpected trip up to Jupiter.

It’s surprisingly easy to breathe up here. To think. She’s right where she belongs, among all the starstuff of the universe, all fluffing her collison back down into her body. 

“I think I blacked out for a second,” Rey says, when she comes back to. 

Ben’s taken the moment to unhinge her knees from his shoulders, settling her back down on steady ground, unmarred by the stars in space. His hands are firm at her waist, keeping her up, although he hasn’t moved from where he’s kneeling, mouth shiny and red. Rey reaches towards him, and Ben grins brightly. 

“Turn around.”

Still somewhat floaty, Rey does so without question, forgetting somewhere along the line that behind her is just a wall to press her hands on. It’s a nice and cold, beautifully yellow wall though, and she sets her cheek to it immediately, sighing in relief at the chill. Ben’s thumbs are soothing at her hips, digging into the meat of her ass with an attention that would ordinarily make Rey feel stifled. Normally she hasn’t just had a life changing orgasm, though, so this is all new territory for her. 

It’s even newer when she feels Ben pulling either side of her open, for his tongue to lave flatly against the cleft of her ass. Immediately, she shies away from him, letting out a breathless laugh. 

“What are you doing back there?”

“Worshipping all of you. The way you deserve.” He chases after her, mouth smacking on her hole, his tongue gingerly prods around the tight clench. “Your ass is perfect. I’ve been dreaming of this since I met you.”

“ _Ben_ —” She’d at first assumed it was a mistake on his part, aiming one way and hitting another, but hearing he’s doing it on purpose — Rey groans, her body haplessly letting tendrils of pleasure rave through her. The presumed taboo of it doesn’t miss her, but more than that, it’s like nothing she’s felt before. Desperately, she likes it, wants Ben to keeps licking at her, eating her, slowly opening her up until his miracle hands get her off again. 

She doubted their talent once, and only once. She will not be making the same mistake twice. 

Reaching back, Ben’s perfectly tuggable hair gets gripped again, and Rey pulls him deeper into her curve of her ass, feeling the way his breath hitches when she forces him in. Her other hand slides under her sweater, gripping one of her breasts needily. The floaty feeling is back, there in every lick of the flame he brushes against her, mouthing from one hole to the next, like he really has no preference about where his mouth goes, as long as it’s on her. She gets taken with the sudden irrefutable desire to _see_ him, only when she turns, her gaze is stolen somewhere else and she gasps, tapping on his shoulder.

“Ben, Ben! Stop.”

Dazed and flushed, he pulls back, his eyes heavy with arousal, but brows heavier with worry. He grips her hips squeezing them reassuringly. 

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“We have a _voyuer_.” Rey says, scandal in her voice. 

True enough, as Ben turns his eyes over his shoulder to look, Spade is in his living room window giving an endearing tilt to his head, staring right at them. His doggy lips curve up in an apparent smile. Ben huffs a laugh, seemingly unbothered, and turns to go back to worshipping her ass.

“ _Ben_!” She tugs him again, forcing him away. “You can’t do — _that_ while your dog watches. No way.”

“He’s across the street, he can’t even tell.”

“I am making direct eye contact with him. He knows.”

“Okay.” Seemingly amused, Ben sits back on his heels, giving Rey the space it takes to straighten herself up, turning to rest her forehead on the wall. Her breaths come out deep, loud — her body feels profoundly different, now that Ben’s touched it. She kind of likes it. “Bedroom?”

“Yes, please.”

Rey turns in time to catch Ben around the neck, laughing brightly when their lips refuse to cooperate for kisses, and they end up just pushing their toothy grins together, Rey tasting the mess she made of his mouth with a coy lick at his chin. Swallowing around it, Rey settles back on her heels just to observe him, for a moment. Her toes, still tucked away in slouchy socks, twist as she sees the heated look in Ben’s eyes, softened only by whatever affection stays tucked away in the raised corners of his smile. She could bottle this feeling — sell it, make millions, afford to keep her yard lit up year round with Christmas pleasures. 

But, this is just for them, and that million dollar look that Ben gives her is all hers.

Honestly, she feels a little goofy standing bare assed in her living room, just a Christmas sweater on her shoulders. Needily, she gives a tug on Ben’s hands to guide them backwards, but he doesn’t budge, shaking his head a little disbelievingly. Stretched at an arm’s length, their fingers fall hesitantly back down to their sides, and Rey gives him a curious tilt of her head, eyebrows raised inquiringly.

“Aren’t you coming?” she asks.

“I just …” His palms must be sweaty, as he wipes them on his thighs. Rey tries hard not to stare at the obvious tent in his jeans. “I really can’t believe this is happening.”

She regards him again, the tips of these red ears, poking out under a veil of thick black hair, and she thinks she’s seeing the duality of Ben Solo waved in front of her, like lines drawn in the sand. At one time a man with his nose buried deep in her cunt, now a shy boy, bashfully turning his gaze from a half-naked woman in front of him. Both of these things are possible in Ben, who looks at Rey like she holds the source of his damnation and his benediction in each of her open, outstretched palms. When he hesitates to take them, Rey spins on her heels, padding towards her bedroom while she strips off her sweater, leaving her bare in the hallway, for his wandering eyes. 

Well, almost bare. The socks are necessary — her toes get cold. 

At her bedroom door, she turns back to look at him, pleased with the look of ruination written on his expression. Eyes clearly downcast to below her belt, they flicker up as she faces him, his throat bobbing as he swallows. 

“It’s happening. If you want it, Ben.”

His eyes snap to her, a little sharly. “I want it.”

“What do you want?”

“You,” he echoes her previous statement, and Rey feels herself smiling, unable to force her muscles into submission. Cottequishly, she ducks partly into her room, eyelashes fluttering while she cups the threshold. 

“I’m yours.” That seems to unlock Ben’s feet from the ground, and he licks his lips predatorily as he stalks forward. “Come and get me.”

Ducking in the rest of the way, she misses Ben stumbling over his feet to get to her, but she hears his heavy footfalls anyway, kicking off snow-wet boots clumsily as he makes his way in. At her door, he gives pause, giving her room a once over.

She tries to imagine what he sees. These burnt orange walls and these mismatched wood pieces for furniture, the colorful splotches of knick knacks laid out on every available surface — and in one part, covered by dirty clothes piled up on the floor. She sees Mickey Mouse ears she’d gotten from a two-day, no sleep road trip she and Finn had taken down to Florida one summer, alongside a model plane Rey had once constructed on a particularly hot, popsicle drunk day. The sticks, the scavenger in her insisted, could be put to better use than just tossing into the garbage. There’s a succulent on the windowsill. Succulents aren’t difficult to keep alive, but she’s proud of herself anyway — bringing a little green into her summery, desert oasis of a room.

There’s also no denying that it’s cluttered, messy in a way that would make an organized person recoil. It’s filled to the brim, with things that don’t necessarily belong in a bedroom — a toaster by the nightstand, because early morning, zero effort toast is godsend, and crates of tools stacked up by her door, because it’s easier than putting them away. She always ends up needing them anyway, because there’s always an issue to fix, a busted pipe or an electrical issue, a shelf to hang, a new picture frame bought at the thrift store. A desk to build that she suddenly needs. Her bedroom is about convenience, if not efficiency. 

Convenience, Rey on her bed, knees bent up, the wink of her cunt peeking through the window provided by her calves. Inefficiency, Ben’s shaking hands fumbling with his belt, shoving his jeans down and off his slim hips. 

A laugh bubbles up in her throat, watching him kick his jeans aside. “Someone’s excited.”

“I’ve wanted you for so long,” he admits, though ducking his head and gingerly approaching her bed, standing above her and letting a hand cup her knee. 

“You have?”

Her surprise makes him recoil, but only barely. Resolutely, he nods.

“Why?”

Insecurity is not something she’s used to hearing in her voice, having thought she left the worst of it in adolescence, skin made thicker than most other children her age. She can’t pretend to have left her childhood unscathed, and her roaring abandonment issues can attest to that, but she did have the impression it made her stronger in the long run. Capable of enduring worser things, a sour start in life making her strong. And yet, here she is. That little girl in a foster home, quietly collecting worms in her pocket, waiting to show her parents who wouldn’t be coming back, a collection of corpses 

A man, looking at her like he’d tolerate a whole world of dead bugs from her, if she touched his palm every time she passed them off. 

Seemingly understanding this, Ben lets his own nerves melt away, taking a step in until he can sit on the bed beside her, hand flattening on the other side of her waist, trapping her in against her multicolored quilt. 

“You’ve always been kind to me. I’ve never deserved it.” He smiles, and his free hand brushes a knuckle against her chin. “I’ve never met anyone like you before.”

“That could be a good thing or a bad thing.”

“It’s only good things, when it comes to you.”

Sincerity is a warm flavor on Ben’s tongue, Rey tasting it when she sits up to put her mouth on his. Sincerity, and the sopping remains of her orgasm there, like the evidence to Rey’s every rebuttal is just a kiss and a taste away. She pours into him, slotting her mouth against his, head tilting. Her tongue laps across the plush seam of his lips and Ben parts them without being told, warm and messy palms making their way up the curve of her waist. 

She doesn’t have to worry about making a mess when she tosses a leg over his thighs, plopping herself down in his lap — there's just his underwear, which she doesn’t mind staining. A pointed grind down of her hips meets a stuttered groan out of Ben. Pulling back, a hand sifts through his thick hair, giving it a tug hard enough for her to press her mouth down on the column of his throat. 

He moans, deep and guttural. Two huge hands grip her ass, grinding her roughly against him, letting the apparently _very_ thick width of his cock slot against her folds. 

“Plus,” he says this breathlessly — Rey can hear the satisfied smile on his lips, and he earns a rougher bite for his effort. “You sweated through that shirt you were wearing, the first time I saw you. I was a goner.”

Sitting back on his knees, Rey levels him with an unimpressed stare, giving a tug on the front of his sweater. 

“You have a kink for sweaty, sawdust-covered women, then. I probably looked like a mess.”

“You looked like something out of a dream,” he retaliates, using Rey’s stopped assault on his neck to take in the sight of her naked chest, eyes falling hazy on rosy, peaked nipples. Almost reverently, he lays a hand on the flat of her chest, almost encompassing the width of her. 

“You must have very interesting dreams,” she adds, unhelpfully. Ben grins. 

“You have no idea.” His hand slides over, cupping a tit, breathing sharply at her softness. “I haven’t had a wet dream since I was fifteen, Rey. Then you move in and everything’s about you, all of a sudden. My thoughts, my dreams. I haven’t been able to sleep, trying to think of how to tell you how I feel.”

“And you came up with Snoopy?” She smiles widely, arching into his touch. Ben groans. “Cookies as love notes?”

“The cookies were my mom’s idea. Sometimes she has good ones.”

“Well, you seem chatty now. You can tell me how you feel without insulting me, this time.”

Giving his hand a small tap away, Rey finds herself committed to divesting him of the sweater hugging his chest the way she wants to. He’ll never have to know how long she stood among racks of Christmas clothes, burying her hands in waves of polyester and cotton to find the treasure in the sea. She’s happy with her choice — ugly but tasteful. The sweater that had said _Jingle My Bells_ with an artful rendering of sleigh bells in the shape of testicles had been a tempting purchase, but she ultimately settled on something more suitable. Something he could wear in front of his parents, maybe, if he’d invited her in to their family dinner. 

Ridiculous, she knows. But she had hoped —

“I think you’re beautiful.”

It could’ve come from her mouth, really, as she pulls the sweater up and over his head, eyes roving over the freshly unveiled skin with a look of wonderment. Lean, calloused fingers trail down the lifted height of his pale chest, connecting the dots between each mole, like his mother flicked a paintbrush on him when he was born, splattering him in tiny black freckles. Ben stops her hands, thumbs warm as they soothe down her palms, eyelids heavy but eyes bright. 

“And I love your house. I really do.” Trailing off, he wobbles his head. Somewhat apologetically, “I didn’t, before you moved in, I thought it was an eyesore. But, you … I don’t know. You made me see it in a different way.”

Gingerly, Rey interlaces their fingers, making small bridges out of hands that connect them. 

“What way is that?”

“Special,” he hums, leaning it to press his worshipful mouth to the center of her chest. Her breath hitches, body wriggling in his lap. “Singular in importance. It stands out in the block, but it’s not a bad thing. It’s as unique as its owner. I guess I just wanted to say I … admire you?”

Brightly, Rey laughs pulling her arms behind her back, pinning Ben’s there at her spine. “Are you asking me? Because I don’t know, Ben. I thought you hated me for a long time.”

“It just seems underwhelming, in light of everything.” Apologetically, he presses his lips to her collarbone, mouthing at the salt of her skin. “I’m sorry. That you thought that. It — really couldn’t be further from the truth.”

“It’s okay. I pieced it together, somewhere between Snoopy and the sleigh, that even if you look scary, you’re really just shy.”

Before he gets out a response, Rey abandons his hands against her, snaking one of hers down swiftly between them to cup his cock through his underwear. He gasps on sensation and she gasps on size, so there’s a vacuum of air between them as Rey tightens her grip, smacking her lips together in an attempt at seduction.

“But it’s okay, Ben, because _I’m_ not shy. I’ll show you how I like you.” 

His breath comes out hot on her neck, although it seems to take some real effort for him to pull himself back, hands gripping her bare hips. She watches as his throat bobs, swallowing down the dryness a clever flick of her wrist puts on his tongue. He nods, and Rey takes the opportunity to finger her way into his underwear, the velvet weight of his cock gliding under her.

“Show me.”

Guiding him like he has a cock for a leash, Rey pulls him back into her, their mouths clashing with newfound intensity. His cock is slick in her palm, like it wept for the taste of her, happy, pearly tears rolling down the head and soaking him in his own arousal. She forgets to feel cocky about it, bullying him backwards and onto her bed. Pinned beneath her, Rey can pull their kiss bruised mouths apart and appreciate his divinity in her bed, like a piece of art laid out in oil paints on canvas. 

Idly, her mouth finds its way to his chest, passing wet, opened mouthed kisses on him from one tit to the next. A pink tongue flattens out against his nipple, and Ben groans, a gentle hand soothing up her hair, fingers falling between the space in her buns. Her teeth catch, a fox’s smirk dragging on his nipple — on another day she’d lose time here, tasting his skin and seeing his responses to every purple mark she wants to suck into his vampiric, silvery skin. For now, she just settles for a few, bitten around his thick chest, all a distraction for her fingers unkindly tugging his briefs off his hips. She follows with the motion, getting on her knees between his legs, just so she can divest of his underwear at his ankles.

She’s not expecting it to be so damn _pretty_ though. Maybe she should’ve, considering the rest of him, but she’s not sure she’s ever seen a cock she’d describe as gorgeous, up until now. Blushing a handsome red, his dick — thick and long and curved towards his belly — bobs in front of her, and she can’t resist hungrily licking her lips at the sight, grinning as Ben balks. 

She presses a warm kiss on the glistening crown, flicking a deliberately torturous tongue against him. 

“I promise I’ll go down on you some other time, if you let me. I just can’t wait to get you inside me, for now.” 

“Yeah. Yeah, that’s fine.” Moaning, maybe more from her words than anything else, Ben very speedily sees to helping her up off the floor, picking her up under her arms and placing her back in his lap. She can’t help but laugh at him, their mouths together and her glee getting shoved into him, against her tongue, subtly twinged with the heady flavor of dick. 

When she grinds against him this time, it’s with the burn of bare skin, each of them having to pull away from their kiss with heavy pants decorating each other's chins. Reaching between them, Rey cups his cock, making the head roll against her eager hole, her drenched folds.

“Is it okay?” she asks.

Reassuringly, he smiles at her, a hand cupping her cheek. “More than.”

To be fair, it’s been awhile, for her. Rey takes her time in a controlled descent, letting her body get used to the infiltration, every starved inch on the way down. She thinks her body must’ve swallowed up about ten feet of cock by the time she’s finally able to settle against him, halving herself down to rest her forehead on his shoulder, her breaths coming out heavy on him. He strokes her back soothingly, like taming a wild animal with an open palm and the offering of comfort.

 _Comfort_. She’s vibrating in his arms, overwhelmed. She could get used to it so easily, if she let herself — his cock, his body, his fingers against her, his mouth in her ear —

“You feel amazing,” he soothes, and his voice is like a balm, deep and rumbling, but breathless too. Effected. _He feels it._ “You’re so _tight_ , Rey. It’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before. You know what I’d do to have you?”

Her mouth works on autopilot, before she can ever make sense of the words. “What would you do?”

“ _Anything_.” It’s a hiss, matching a roll of his hips upward and into her, knocking the breath from her lungs all over again. “Anything, Rey. A hundred sleighs, all year round. More cookies, if that’s what you want. I’d eat you out every day and be — fucking — _grateful._ ”

Helping herself up, her hands brace against his shoulders, giving her leverage to roll her hips into him, almost lazily. Her breath catches, halfway between a gasp and a laugh, and she settles into a slow, grinding rhythm, her body curving naturally like waves licking the sand above him. 

“You — you don’t have to do any of that,” she says it breathlessly. “I’m already yours, Ben. _Ben_.”

His name in her mouth unlocks something in him — though the fact that it’s caught on a deep moan probably doesn’t hurt any. He chases after it, a palm landing flat over her tit while his other hand comes between her legs, thick fingers brushing her clit on every roll forward. It’s almost embarrassing. The taunt pull of orgasm threatens her once again, detailed as ever by Ben’s tender care of her. Even like this, their bodies sweaty and sex dumb, he’s still careful with her, gentle the way you’d never expect from a friendly giant like him. He pinches her nipple and Rey’s back bows, distraught with every ounce of pleasure in her.

“ _Ben._ ”

It comes out more like a complaint than anything, but Ben seems inherently to understand what she needs. Not missing a beat, he flips their positions, laying Rey out on her bed like a dinner spread he’s about to eat whole. Parting her legs, Ben hooks his hands under her knees, pressing them forward to her chest, effectively halving her. Already, Rey reaches towards his cock and puts it between her legs, catching on her sopping hole and near screaming when he pushes his hips forward and into her again, filling a space she didn’t realize was so _empty_ before. 

“Rey,” he grunts. His thrusts get sporadic, rougher. Rey delights in the feeling of him losing control against her, their bodies making all kinds of percussion music when they collide together. Her throat feels hoarse, from all the moaning she’s doing. “ _Rey_ , wanna feel you come on my cock. You have to —”

She nods, because she gets it, too — this strange understanding, living in each other’s minds comfortably. A hand snakes between their bodies and she rubs her swollen, sensitive and begging clit in cloyingly sweet circles, thighs quaking from where he’s holding them in place.

“ _Please._ ”

“Please what, Rey?” She cracks her eyes open, watching his sweaty hair sway with every thrust. He looks like a man possessed, overwhelmed. Rey feels high on the fact that her body did _that_. “Say it.”

“Please, I want to come. Need — _harder_ , Ben.”

Some sound like a dying animal rips from his chest, and Ben inexplicably listens to her impossible request. She imagines he’d probably learn to fly, if she told him to. The greed in her request doesn’t miss her, anyway. It wasn’t an hour ago that she said she’d never orgasmed with a partner before, and now she’s here, addicted to the feeling of him, desperate to reach a height she’s never been to before. 

Not only that, but it’s shockingly easy, when Ben leans forward and presses three little, secret words into the shell of her ear.

It’s even more intense than the first time, this drowning pleasure that whites out her vision, body shaking like a leaf in his grasp. She must be bearing down on his cock tightly, because Ben’s gone feral by the time sense comes back to Rey and she can _watch_ , her bouncing tits and his brutal hips, fucking her for another few thrusts before he buries himself so deep in her she can taste it, and splatters her insides with a mess of white.

They lay there, breathing heavily in the stale sex air of her bedroom, Ben’s head on her chest and her fingers in his hair, listening to his breathing steady itself out into a quiet simmer as the minutes bleed on. 

She’s grinning up at her ceiling, thinking about all the stains Ben’s leaving in her walls, right now.

“So you love me, huh?”

—

It takes approximately fifteen minutes after orgasming, that the scent of smoke filters in through Rey’s bedroom door, and they realize revenge will have to be served up burnt and bitter tonight, on _not_ Christmas Eve.

Ben still resolutely takes a bite of burnt pie when Rey looks heartbroken about it, and he doesn’t cringe when the ash coats his mouth. Maybe it’s because he, naked and hickey bruised and still wet in unfortunate places, pulls Rey in for a kiss afterwards, and tells her he only tastes apple juice on her tongue. 

Five minutes after that, they decide to spend the day together, with Ben loosely pulling on clothes to go collect Spade and bring him over, much to Beebee’s chagrin. Rey has to bite back the urge to say _stay forever_ with so much intensity that she ends up saying it anyway when he’s back in her arms, with such sincerity that Ben’s eyes water in surprise, disbelief.

It’s easy to tell him she loves him too. With that look in his eyes, and Snoopy fluttering in his front yard against the brutal winter breeze, how could she not?

—

Delight colors her face as she holds up a ceramic mug to the webcam on her computer, shaped like a very glorious, colorful chicken. There are no real words for how wide her grin gets, although there is a delighted squeal as she shows it off, declaring her love of it.

“Thanks again for my cock! You’re the best, Finn.”

“Aw, shucks. Merry Christmas, Rey.”

It’s the early morning of Christmas Eve. Ben’s still asleep in her bed, Spade curled up beside him. Rey’s only up this early to video chat a time honored present opening tradition with Finn. And Poe, he’s there too — and they’re running on island time, nearly in midday where they’re at. So, Rey woke up extra early to meet them, satisfying herself with the feeling of family, even if it’s at a distance. 

“Sorry we can’t be there with you, Rey,” Poe chimes in.

“Psh. I’ve got Beebee, that’s all I need.” The cat is burbling happily in her lap, and she turns her camera down to see him. She has pointedly _not_ mentioned hookup last night with said hot neighbor, because she already gifted Finn one present — she’s not going to give him the gift of being _right_ as well. “Seriously you guys, don’t worry. I want you to have a good vacation, and tell me all about it in a few months, when I stop being jealous.”

They laugh. That’s good. Flashing a bright smile, she picks Beebee up under his arms, holding his paw out to wave. He stretched out longly, a disgruntled meow leaving his mouth.

“Talk to you soon, okay? Merry Christmas, boys.”

“Merry Christmas, Rey!”

The call ends with a click, and Rey leans back on her sofa with a huff of hot air. Displeased, Beebee scurries from her lap, padding to her bedroom just in time for Rey to see Ben standing in the hallway, his arms crossed over his chest. Pants on, unfortunately, but his bare chest is enough to excite her loins — she stole his shirt away, after all, seeing to the effect herself. 

“Morning,” she says, pushing her laptop aside to come greet him. His hands settle on her cheeks warmly, leaning in to press a kiss on her forehead. Two kisses, completely indulgent. It’s Christmas, after all. 

“Morning.” It comes out tense, something else on his tongue. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but — Rey, you’re not … spending Christmas alone, are you?”

Lazily, she wraps her arms around his middle, pressing her cheek to the center of his chest. She nuzzles into him, looking for more early morning cuddles she was woefully robbed of. 

“No.”

“Beebee doesn’t count.”

“Then, yes.”

“ _Rey_ ,” he says it carefully, berating but not mean, sad but not pitying. He tugs her back, getting her eyes on him, his hands on her cheeks. “What about family? You said that was your favorite part of Christmas.”

“Oh. Well, sure. The idea of family.” A wave of her hand. Her gaze drifts to the side, and gratefully, he doesn’t force it back on him. “I don’t actually — have family. Parents, or anything. It’s just me and Finn, but Finn’s off with his boyfriend for Christmas vacation, so …”

She trails off. Ben stares at her intently for a moment, fires in his eyes to match a passionate twist of his lip, which Rey thinks might’ve been a snarl if Ben was born as something more animalistic. He watches her like that for a long moment, deep in thought, before taking and releasing a heavy, deep rooted breath. At length, he nods once, deciding something. 

“You’ll need to be prepared. My parents are … a lot. That’s not even mentioning all my uncles, all their friends. It’ll be a full house.”

Her eyes blink up at him, huge and imploring. “Huh?”

“You’re coming to my parent’s house, obviously. I’m not leaving you alone on _Christmas_. Not when it’s your favorite.” He shakes his head. “You’re only looking at me like that because you haven’t met my family. You’re going to beg me to leave early once we get there.”

She can’t help it. Water lines her eyes and a smile curves up her lips, a breathless laugh making her lungs ache with the well of gratitude filling her. Ben leans in to kiss her eyelids, gentle as a lamb.

“But what if I don’t want to leave?”

Brilliant and bright, he grins, pressing their foreheads together.

“I guess you’ll just have to stay, then.”

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed!! this story was a lot of fun to write, and i'm happy with the outcome. thanks to theresa for her great prompts — it was really difficult to choose just one, but i hope you liked what i came up with! 
> 
> happy valentines day all, and please comment if you liked it :)
> 
> EDIT: authors have been revealed! it was me all along.
> 
> if you enjoyed the fic, please consider following me on a [twitter](https://twitter.com/supershario). thanks so much for reading!!


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